Children’s Literature: Not Just for Children (Duh)

As a children’s librarian I feel I’ve earned enough of a soapbox to proclaim and vehemently defend the age-old conviction that children’s books are not just for children (duh.) While that may seem like common sense to most, one look in a Barnes & Noble will tell you otherwise: if you’re looking for a copy of The Little Prince you’ll need to forage through the plastic trees, past the mural of jungle animals and the coloring table just to find it. It’s one of those instances, like trying to get into Chuck E. Cheese’s, where you feel like everyone’s looking at you, judging you for the lack of a child at your side (c’mon, like you’ve never done it.) That’s when you grab the book, pretend you’re buying it for your nephew and get the hell out of there.

That is, assuming that you’ve somehow heard of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s…